Ever After (The Hollows #11)(84)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Holy crap, it’s Cormel!" Jenks shrilled, and I fell back against the wall, hand on my throat as I realized it was Rynn Cormel, probably here to talk to Ivy.

"That one needs punishing!" Felix pointed at me, pacing back and forth before him, totally out of his mind. "She is mine. Mine!"

Rynn Cormel’s jaw was tight as he raised a hand. His felt cap lay on the floor, and his coat smelled of cashmere and vampire. "Let go of the thought of her, sir," he said calmly, and I pulled myself straight, grimacing. I’d filled the air with my fear-I’d known better. Jenks, hovering at the ceiling with a bloody, bared sword, was tense enough for both of us.

"The demon witch encouraged my scion to defy me . . ." Felix’s voice was softer now, more calculating, scaring me.

Rynn Cormel shook his head, his Brooklyn accent sounding odd as he firmly said, "This is mine, not yours. I punish her, not you."

No one was going to punish me, but I was smart enough not to say anything. My heart pounded, and I was glad Cormel was here. Felix was out of his mind.

Felix’s angry pacing slowed, and Cormel’s outstretched hand shifted to one of welcome. "You are in need, sir," he said respectfully. "Distraught, and drunk on the sun. Let go of this idea and turn to a new one before my ward kills you. She’s not for you. She’s not for me. She is for Ivy."

"Ivy . . ." Felix snarled, and I held my breath as Felix thought that over. His youthful face was twisted into an ugly mask of anguish and fear, his eyes black and showing a lack of control I’d expect from the newly undead, not one older than Cincinnati’s tunnels.

"I am drunk on the sun," he said suddenly, his beautiful voice cracking. "Oh God." He said the words with anguish, falling back against the counter as if having abruptly found himself. "What have I done? What . . ."

Jenks dropped from the ceiling to my shoulder, and I jumped.

"What am I doing?" Felix lamented, his head bowed until his hair hid his eyes. He was shaking, and only now did Cormel glance back to make sure I was okay.

"You think it’s wise to turn your back on him?" I said as Cormel came to me, a cold hand landing on my arm to push me into the hall. He was wearing a tidy suit that made him look like a middle-aged politician, and his smile that had saved a world was now focused on me. It wasn’t working. I was scared shitless.

"I’m sorry you saw this, Rachel," he said, and I slid out from under his hand on my shoulder. "The diseases of the undead are not easy to understand. Might I have a moment alone with him?"

Head shaking, I backed up into the corner. "Not in my church, no." My eyes flicked behind him to the undead vampire. Felix looked crushed, beaten as he slumped against the counter and threatened to slip to the floor. Was this what happened when vampires got old? They slowly lost their mind until they walked into the sun?

Cormel’s eye twitched at my defiance. But it wasn’t until Jenks clattered his wings that he turned back to Felix.

"I can’t," Felix said, his voice wispy and beaten. "Nina showed me the sun, and I stared too long. I can’t bring myself to forget again, now that I know what that looks like."

I took a breath to say something, my words forgotten when Felix brought his gaze up and I saw the agony in him. He had come here looking for me to kill him. He wanted to end it, but walking into the sun took too much courage.

"Let Nina be," Cormel said, turning his back on me. "Let her have her time."

Felix was shaking like an addict in withdrawal, and maybe he was. "I can’t. I can’t," he said, his voice broken. "The sun pulls me. God, it’s too easy to just . . . and then I’m alive through her. I am alive." His face became animated, almost too beautiful. "Do you remember being alive? I do. I didn’t get enough when I was alive, taken too soon. Why are you stopping me? You don’t know! How can you?"

Cormel had crossed the room, and I watched, unbelieving, as the younger undead comforted the old. "You know it will never be enough," he said, a hand on Felix’s shoulder. "You’re lost to the sun. If you don’t let it go, it will kill you. Nina is too bright."

Felix licked his lips, confusion slipping into his eyes. "Nina loves me."

"You’re killing her," Cormel said, and I wondered if I should have left when I had the chance. "Ivy is right in teaching Nina control. Let Nina live her time."

Felix took a huge breath. "I need her!" he shouted, and the hum of Jenks’s wings increased in pitch. "Who are you to say no to me! You are a pup!" He strode back and forth, never getting any closer, never any farther. "A squalid, puking whelp snuffing along the edges of the birthing box, unable to see the depth of pain beyond it!"

"Perhaps." Cormel inclined his head, standing very, very still. "But I, sir, know not to look. I believe the lie, and so I survive another day. You can’t have Nina anymore. I will not give you justification on Ivy or Rachel. The darkness will warm again if you turn your back on the sun. Sir. Please. It’s not too late."

Felix spun into an ugly hunch, the hem of his beautifully tailored suit quivering in his anger. "It is my right," he hissed, his gaze starting to dip back into madness. "I hunger because of her; she alone satisfies me . . ."

Frightened for Ivy, I moved, Cormel’s back-flung hand stopping me.

"You may not claim justice on Ivy," he said firmly. Something had shifted. His voice was still respectful, but the subtle subtext of subordinate vampire was utterly gone. And by Felix’s reddening face, I think he recognized it as well. It was too late for him. He couldn’t let go; he couldn’t become what he had once been. There was only the task of seeing it to the end now.

"Your favored child is stealing from me. I demand compensation!"

I exchanged a look with Jenks, seeing he had seen the shift as well. Felix was no longer a functioning undead vampire, but one who was ailing, one to be humored and lied to. He was old, forgetful, lacking control. He had done it to himself, and I pitied him, remembering seeing the controlled, confident vampire through Nina’s eyes not three days ago. He had known what would happen, and he had done it anyway, all for the chance to see the sun.

"I’ll give you compensation, but you will not have Ivy or Rachel," Cormel said, and I pitied Felix as he all but whined.

"Ivy could satisfy me," he wheedled, looking ugly as he tried to hide his emotions, but he was broken and couldn’t be fixed.

Cormel shook his head. "Rachel is going to find our souls with her, and Ivy needs to remain untouched. She will find our souls so that the sun may find us again and end this lie we live. Will you wait with me for that day?"